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"Don’t play games with me, kid," Joe Biden snapped at a young woman who'd asked him how many genders there are.

At first, he gave an answer: "At least 3." But then she asked him to name them. That's when he said, "Don’t play games with me, kid." And then he grabbed her by the arm, The NY Post reports.

It was a great one-two question combination, and according the Post, the questioner came from a right-wing student organization. How are candidates supposed to answer that "How many genders are there?"?

Was "at least 3" a clever try... or something that's obviously not going to work? You have to anticipate the "name them" follow-up, and then what do you say?

I'm picturing Joe stumbling along: There are at least 3 genders: male, female, and... what's the third one there? Let's see. Male, female and, let's see. I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops.

I adapted that from the stylings of Rick Perry in that awful debate in November 2011:



ADDED: I'll bet all the candidates have figured this out already, but I'll say it anyway. The right way to answer the "How many?" question is to decline to speak in numerical terms. Say something like, "I believe gender is a matter of individual feeling and expression and not something for politicians to talk about and count."
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